Heat raced to her cheeks. ‘His name was Jimmy and, no, we’re not together any more. We split up a number of years ago.’ Which was yet another painful regret. She still felt guilty about backing away from her and Jimmy’s wedding, even though she’d known it was the right thing to do at the time.
The main problem had been that the memories of Caleb had never left her, even though she’d tried her hardest to forget him. He’d stayed with her, buried deep in her heart.
There wasn’t a flicker of reaction on Caleb’s face at this news though, not even a twitch of an eye. Clearly he didn’t care a jot about her any more. But then, if that was true, why was he being so pig-headed about not listening to her?
Because he was punishing her for hurting him fifteen years ago.
Frustration surged through her. ‘I can’t believe you’re still holding a grudge, Caleb. Surely someone of your standing and success has no need to be so small-minded.’ She could hear the anger vibrating in her voice and it seemed Caleb did too because he widened his eyes a little before replacing his flash of surprise with an amused smirk.
‘Is this the controlled, cautious Elena I knew all those years ago? My, how you’ve changed.’
‘For the better, Caleb. I’m not the naïve young girl you used to know.’ She refrained from saying and love, knowing that would be taking things a step too far. He’d never said such a thing to her, he’d been too proud for that, though it had been implied in his every action.
Unless she’d read him wrongly.
Which was quite possible.
She’d been wrong about a lot of things.
There was a quiet knock on the glass door and Caleb’s PA crept, hunch-shouldered, into the room.
Before she could speak, Caleb let out a growl of frustration and snapped, ‘I thought I told you I didn’t want to be interrupted!’
Because Caleb had spoken to her in English, and perhaps in deference to Elena’s presence there too, his PA replied in English. ‘I’m so sorry, but I thought you’d want to know about this straight away. Apparently there’s a problem with the meeting with the Americans on Monday. Señor Carter’s PA is saying he’s having second thoughts—’
Caleb held up a hand to stop her speaking, his gaze flicking momentarily to Elena before returning to his PA, his expression thunderous, as if furious that Elena had been a party to hearing about the setback.
This time he replied in Spanish and, even though Elena didn’t understand a word of it, not being a Spanish speaker, she could see that his words had cut his PA deeply when she backed out of the room with tears glinting in her eyes.
‘How can you be so cold? So mean!’ she blurted when he turned back to look at her. ‘That poor woman was just doing her job.’
Mouth dry, she reached for the glass of water but when she saw how much her hand was trembling she quickly dropped it to her side again.
‘How could you treat her like that, Caleb?’
‘Like what?’ he growled.
‘Like nothing. Less than nothing. I would have thought you’d have made every effort to make sure your subordinates were treated with kindness and respect after what you went through when you were young.’
Anger flickered in his eyes. ‘I’m respectful to people when they work hard and make good choices.’
‘But people won’t learn from their mistakes if you don’t nurture them. They become afraid to take necessary risks and everything grinds to a halt.’
‘Is that what’s happened to your business, Elena?’ he asked quietly. ‘Did you drive it into the ground with your inept handling of your staff so you were forced to come here, begging for my help? What a fall from grace that must be for you.’
Hot rage rushed through her body. How could the smart, compassionate man she remembered have become so hard and mean? ‘I knew you could be a bit on the curt side, Caleb, but the man I knew was never cruel. Or a bully!’
Shock flashed momentarily across his face before it was replaced with a stony scowl. ‘Enough! This meeting is over. I don’t need you coming in here, telling me how to treat my staff. Go home and run your own business—’ he leant in closer to her so she saw the conviction plainly in his eyes ‘—without my battery.’
With that closing shot, he turned his back on her and strode out of the room, leaving the glass door swinging in his wake.
* * *
Caleb Araya paced the floor of his corner office, his blood pumping frantically through his veins.
Who did Elena Jones think she was, turning up after fifteen years of silence and presuming to tell him how to run his business and treat his staff?
The woman certainly had some nerve.
And a skewed sense of priorities.
Not that he didn’t already know that from experience.
To his utter frustration, and despite the fact they hadn’t seen each other in a very long time, as soon as he’d seen her standing there in his meeting room he’d been hit hard by that same immediate connection they’d always shared.
It had put him on the back foot.
It had always been like that with her—she affected him like no other woman ever had. The moment he’d met her at the beginning of his Erasmus exchange year to the University of Cambridge he’d found himself drawn to her.
Her cool integrity and assertive sense of self had set her apart from the other immature, entitled female students that had swarmed around him, believing him to be an ideal candidate for the bad boy fling they were so keen to tick off their list before settling down with their rich, boring husbands.
They hadn’t bothered to get to know him at all.
Elena, on the other hand, had made him feel as if he didn’t need to pretend to be somebody he wasn’t when he was with her. She’d liked him for his erudite conversation and refreshing views on the world. Or so she’d said.
After growing up as the poor, pitied son of a woman who was infamous in the small town where he lived for being the mistress of a married man and a woman of loose morals, he’d promised himself he’d make sure his adulthood would be very different.
Because of the disgrace that surrounded his family, his early life had been pretty tough by all accounts: friendless, violent and isolated. But after he’d been threatened with expulsion from the elite school that he’d later found, to his chagrin, that his mother’s sugar daddy had funded, he’d pulled up his socks and eschewed everything and everyone for a life dedicated to study so he could get away from the small town and its even smaller mentality.
He was going to be someone that people looked up to and respected, and Elena had made him feel as though he’d achieved that—for a short time anyway.
To his shame and regret, it had turned out he’d been very wrong about how much she’d actually cared about him and she’d been the first and last person he’d ever trusted.
The memory of her betrayal had stayed with him over the years, tarnishing every relationship he’d had, as if she were a devil on his shoulder, judging his choices, prodding at his conscience, reminding him he could never truly trust anyone with his heart.
When he’d seen her name in his diary this morning it had sent a shock of such intense regret-fuelled nostalgia through him he’d had to sit down and take a few deep breaths to regain his composure. He’d been on the cusp of telling his PA to cancel the meeting, but curiosity and a deep-seated urge to regain some sort of equilibrium over past hurts had stopped him at the last minute.
He wanted to feel as though he finally had a handle on his feelings about Elena Jones.
It had been going well, with him feeling in control of the meeting until she’d caught him out by accusing him of being a bully.
It had shocked him to his core.
Was that really what she thought he’d become?
It had been such a long time
since someone had stood up to him like that, he had no idea whether his behaviour was out of line or not. The thought that it might have been had rattled him. She’d rattled him, despite his determination not to let her get to him.
He stabbed at the buzzer on the phone to summon his PA.
Benita hurried into the room, her hands tightly clasped in front of her and her gaze lowered as if she was afraid she’d get another dressing-down for what had just happened.
He’d been furious when she’d let it slip in front of Elena that things weren’t exactly going to plan with the Americans. He’d not wanted her to know that things weren’t running as smoothly as he’d wanted to project, for the sake of his professional pride, but he was aware, now that he’d calmed down a little, that he’d perhaps been a bit too harsh on the woman. She’d not been working for him for long, having stepped into the role after his usual PA had gone on maternity leave, and they hadn’t found the right rhythm for working together yet.
But he wasn’t a complete monster, as Elena had so brazenly suggested. He was firm and expected total professionalism at all times, but he made sure to reward those who did a good job for him.
‘Benita, I wanted to say good work on putting that file together for me yesterday. It was very helpful in my meeting.’
His PA stared at him, as if in shock.
Surely it wasn’t that surprising that he’d offered her a compliment.
Was it?
No. He was letting Elena Jones get into his head and that was the last place he wanted her to be. He was over his feelings for her. It had taken him years to get rid of the ache he’d carried around after she’d rejected him, but he’d finally managed it.
‘Thank you.’ Benita paused, a worried frown now pinching her brow. ‘Are you okay? Is there anything I can get you?’ she asked with hesitation in her voice.
He opened his mouth to dismiss her misplaced concern, annoyed that she’d noticed his agitation, but pulled himself back at the last second, now hyper-aware of Elena’s comments.
Damn the woman!
‘I’m fine,’ he muttered, forcing his mouth into a smile.
But, instead of seeming reassured by this, his PA took a hurried step away from him as if suspicious about his sudden change in attitude.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, pacing to the window to look down at the street below and collect himself.
What was happening to him today? His head was a mess.
At least he was free of Elena now though. His outright rejection of her proposal would surely mean she’d never darken his door again.
The street was busy with people milling about between office blocks and cafés and he watched them scurrying around for a moment, his thoughts jumping between relief and dissatisfaction. He knew he’d been petty, not even agreeing to look at the proposal she’d brought all the way from England, but she’d humiliated and hurt him once and he wasn’t prepared to let her get anywhere near him again.
A partnership between them—their companies, he corrected himself—could never work.
For a second he wondered whether his mind was playing tricks on him as a familiar lone figure on the street opposite his building caught his eye. His stomach lurched as he watched her pace back and forth, then throw her gaze up towards Araya Industries and frown, as if hatching a plan to get back in here and torment him again.
Apparently he couldn’t have been more wrong about having chased Elena Jones away for good.
Well, he wasn’t having it.
‘Hold my calls for a while longer,’ he said to his PA as he swept out of the room past her and headed towards the lift that would take him down to street level.
Apparently he hadn’t made it clear enough to Elena that there would be no further opportunities to meet with him, so he was going to rectify that right here and now. He was going to tell her to go home and that he wanted nothing more to do with her.
Storming onto the street, blood pulsing feverishly through his veins, he called out her name and she turned to meet his eye, her expression registering first surprise then hope.
Hope away, cariño—you’re not getting a thing from me except a wave goodbye.
The street was quiet as he drew level with where she stood on the pavement opposite and he glanced quickly left, not seeing anything coming his way, anger at her audacity buzzing in his head.
Elena’s eyes were fixed firmly on him as he began to cross the street towards her but, as he stepped into the middle of the road, something made her glance away then quickly back to him again.
This time there was an altogether different expression on her face.
Panic.
Blood thumping in his ears, he swivelled to look at what had spooked her and time seemed to slow down. There was a motorbike coming towards him at speed and he knew in that moment, with absolute certainty, that there was no way he could get out of its path in time.
Memories flashed before his eyes: of him and Elena laughing together after one of their classes at university, of her sitting in his room telling him she was thinking about splitting up with her childhood sweetheart, and all the blood rushing from his head as he realised he finally had a chance to have what he’d wanted for so long, of the look of abject hurt and distress on her face just now when he’d told her he wouldn’t partner with her.
Lights and colours danced before his eyes and a strange kind of euphoria lifted his senses, making his surroundings hyper-loud and vividly real.
And then the bike hit him, the impact throwing his body into the air, knocking all the breath from his lungs. In a panic he flailed his limbs wildly as he tried to grab hold of something, anything, to anchor him as he spun through the void. A moment later his body made rough, painful impact with the ground, quickly followed by his head.
And everything went black.
CHAPTER TWO
ELENA STOOD IN SHOCK, her arms still outstretched as if she’d thought she could do something, some kind of magic perhaps, to stop Caleb from being hit by the motorbike that had sped round the corner just as he’d stepped into its path.
She felt light-headed and displaced from reality, as if this was all some horrible dream—though the heavy thump of her heart in her throat and the adrenaline that roared through her body told her otherwise.
The rider was picking himself up from the ground after coming off his bike and miraculously seemed not to be injured in any way, but Caleb’s slumped body, which had been flung at least ten feet, was still lying half on the pavement and half on the road. And he wasn’t moving.
A cacophony of noise suddenly rushed in on her as people began running towards where Caleb lay, finally shocking Elena out of her dazed state. She stumbled towards him, falling to her knees by his side, barely registering the rough ground biting into her skin, and put her shaking hand onto his torso. His eyes were closed, but she could feel his chest rising and falling with his breathing.
So he was still alive. Thank God.
She could feel tears pressing at the back of her eyes but she blinked them away, determined to keep it together for his sake.
‘Caleb? Can you hear me?’ she whispered, leaning in closer to him and breathing in the distinctive scent of him that had haunted her throughout the years, usually at the most inopportune moments.
Somebody—a woman—asked her a question in Spanish and Elena shook her head, mouthing back ineffectually, totally unable to summon even the basic Spanish phrase for I don’t understand.
The woman frowned, then asked, ‘Are you English?’
Was it that obvious?
Judging by the fact she was wearing a highly inappropriate woollen suit for the weather and had skin so light it was almost translucent, she guessed it must be.
‘Yes!’ Elena said, relief flooding through her that the woman wo
uld be able to help her. ‘I don’t speak Spanish.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I need to call an ambulance. Can you help me?’
‘Don’t worry,’ the woman said, gesturing behind her. ‘My husband has already called them.’
Caleb let out a low groan and Elena swivelled back to look at him, her heart leaping with relief. ‘Caleb? Are you okay? I’m so sorry—this is all my fault.’
At least it felt like it was her fault, even though rationally she knew it had been an accident. But it was also another thing for him to hold against her.
She should have left this area and gone to regroup somewhere else—to give Caleb a chance to calm down—then come back again once her head was clear and her plan fully formed, instead of pacing about in front of his building like a lunatic. He must have seen her prowling around out here and decided to come out to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing.
When she’d heard him call her name from across the street her first thought had been that he’d changed his mind and decided to listen to her after all and her heart had leapt with excitement and relief. But as he’d crossed the street and she’d seen the look of frustrated fury in his eyes it had become powerfully obvious that she’d been very wrong to suppose that.
He hadn’t wanted to turn back the clock. He’d wanted her gone.
The woman laid a hand gently onto her back, dragging her out of her distraught reflection. ‘He’ll be okay, don’t worry. The ambulance is on its way.’
Elena nodded gratefully, this time unable to stop tears from welling in her eyes. ‘He was crossing the road to meet me and didn’t see the bike.’
‘It’s okay. Not your fault,’ the woman said in a soothing tone, rubbing Elena’s arm in sympathy.
If only that were true. She already felt guilty enough about the anguish she’d caused Caleb in the past and now she’d hurt him again, only physically this time. He never would have been out here if it wasn’t for her.
A moment later the sound of a siren broke through the low murmurs of the crowd that had gathered around them and an ambulance sped round the corner and parked up nearby, its flashing lights bouncing off the windows of the buildings opposite.
The Unforgettable Spanish Tycoon Page 2